SHE HOPPED ACROSS TO SEE US

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 250, 6 April 1944, Page 14

SHE HOPPED ACROSS TO SEE US

N spite of war conditions, it happens now and again that a lucky business man gets a chance to cross the Tasman. Far more rarely the chance comes to a business woman, as it did recently to Miss Joy Morgan, of the Macquarie Broadcasting Network in Australia, and a Listener representative was lucky enough to meet her. Almost at once, we were discussing food. "I notice that the price of meals is not controlled here," Miss Morgan said. "In Australia no hotel or restau-

rant can charge more than four shillings for a lunch, or five shillings for a dinner. But at least we don’t have to part with meat coupons for a meal in town." "What about rationing in general?" "I. don’t know much about food rations," she said. "That is my mother’s headache. As for clothing, we get 112 coupons a year." That sounded a lot by comparison" with our 52, but it turned out that a coat in Australia takes 27 coupons to our 12, shoes 8 to our 2, slippers 4 to our none, frocks 13 to our 6, and stockings 4 to our 2. Proportionally, therefore, the two schemes work very similarly. Miss Morgan intends to visit all th? cities to get first-hand knowledge of commercial broadcasting methods. "Are commercial stations in Australia,’ we asked, "quite independent of the National stations?" Quite. But of course the Commercial networks co-operate with the National system in war broadcasts. Then, too, in Australia, we have a number of commercial enterprises running on competition. For example, in Sydney there are, in addition to the two National stations 2BC and 2FC, five commercial stations, all competitive." "To what uses are they put for war purposes?" (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) "Besides news broadcasts and Government requirements, there are programmes such as the Macquarie Network series, "Then we have something that is apparently uncommon in commercial broadcasting in New Zealand. In Australia at the present time, there is a marked swing towards institutional or goodwill advertising. With the shortage of manpower and of material, many big firms have had to withdraw their goods from the market. But although they are no longer supplying to the public, they buy time and programmes as a goodwill gesture. These programmes have no long advertisements attached to them, only perhaps: ‘This is brought*to you by the courtesy of So-and-So.’ They have nothing to sell, but they are determined to keep their name before the public until they do have something." Actors Speed Up "How do you get on for broadcasting features in Australia? Do you import, or produce your own?" "We produce. In our network we have 40 quarter-hours of local features a week. That entails a tremendous amount of work when you think the scripts have to be written, cast, rehearsed, and recorded. Under the new Actors’ Equity agreement, artists have brought themselves under an award, so that they now agree to rehearse and

record a quarter-hour programme in one hour, when formerly they took perhaps two hours. They get paid overtime for every quarter-hour or fraction thereof they work. . . . Yes, we have some things to teach you, and some things to learn from you, and it is for the second reason I hopped across to see you. But you can tell your readers emphatically that I like what I have seen of New Zealand."